I’m watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. The game is on. The good one–the sixers v. raptors game is on. I am not watching it because I haven’t been involved in the series at all. I’m still in the mode of turn it on in the 4th or turn on the NBA finals. I haven’t gotten into the games that much and have yet to really tune into what teams I like in these playoffs. I know who I don’t like–That’s Golden State. Well, that is a mostly don’t like them kind of situation. I’m looking for them to lose but I am looking forward to watching the games they play, because they play really good basketball.
Some Thoughts:
Really was distracted during this blog. I’m doing a presentation on finding time to write, and I believe that what I need to add to the situation is how to write with people around you. I’m not good at that. I get fairly distracted. That is happening right now.
The job allows me to attend conferences within the USA and even offers some funding to cover costs. I have failed to take advantage of this funding for the past 6 years (or so). That has to stop. Conferences have a dual purpose. As I am now a middling conference speaker myself, I need to go to more of these presentations in order to see what those who are really good at it do during their time. I also need to go to these in order to continue learning and perfecting my craft. In many ways these two things are the same.
Some Thoughts:
The 1500 has not been good for the last 48-72 hours. I’ve been failing left and right with the word count. I am swamped with school responsibilities and, more specifically, I am allowing game and fun time to take precedent. This is an important admission. Failing helps me to recognize that the problem is solvable. The problem, as it turns out, is me.
Raining out here in the desert. Look, universe, I’ve tried to have a solid outdoors day with my partner twice this month. We are 10 days in and you’ve chosen to bring the rain both days? Come on.
I’ve fallen all the way back into Minecraft. The new Villager update is a deeply compelling look at how villages can be shaped and defended and, well, exploited.
Long night filled with moments of joy and frustration. Okay, mostly frustration. I’m not doing so hot with the writing or the sleeping as of today and I think there is more than a passing relationship between the two. When I don’t get sleep–when my family doesn’t get sleep–all of us tend to be the worst versions of ourselves. It is for that reason I don’t think we will be able to go to the workout in the morning. That is probably for the best–I know I need the time for me. I gotta get back to making choices that are about me vs. being about them.
So, here’s some stuff about me.. Some Thoughts about me, actually:
I’m beyond the point of feeling odd about liking minecraft. That is a really fun and creative environment.
Let’s forget for a moment how much watching my kids grow up reminds me of how terribly elderly I’ve become. Instead let us put the focus on the freedoms the future might bring. Take work for example: Once my kids leave the house the cost of living will decrease. My partner and I can shrink to a smaller ‘home base’ living space and not have to worry about the kids having room to sleep and keep their stuff. More to the point, I will be past the brief joy of having kids to take to practice and to raise and wonder about. I’ll know they are on their own and our relationship will change and grow into a more evolved situation.
I won’t need to talk to my ex.
I’ll be back to a place where my partner and I do things that are about us all the time. I have not seen a sustainable version of that since before I had kids.
These kind of thoughts cross my mind as I watch my kids age up. I’m excited to see them grow. I’m excited to see them gone. I am excited about the future and what is to come for me and my partner. That excitement helps me get through nights like these when I cannot sleep and the sun threatens to rise before I ever close my eyes.
It is way too soon to start believing, but there are rumors and possibilities when it comes to the New York Knicks. I’m going to share, but I am not getting hyped about it… Not yet.
Here’s the possible: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and the possibility of a high lottery pick that nets Zion Williamson. So, we could get a new big 3 going in the very near future and with that combo (and a decent bench???) get back to the playoffs in the east!
Okay, enough of that talk. Lets talk about some more concrete stuff: Looks like the Giants made good choices on Defense in the draft. Julian Love and DeAndre Baker both looked really good out there. Love, a 4th round pick is a good fit for the Bettcher style at free safety as he is a native corner and a slot guy at that. Bettcher likes to use the strong as a ‘tweener LB and play the free high or in man. This could work with a guy like Love as the free.
So, I am in the hope realm, but not for the orange ball team. No, the brown ball team–the ole pigskin–is where I hang my hopes.
Some Thoughts:
Looks like we are moving to Pop Warner this year for what is likely my last season as a coach. I need to use this year to establish a squad and then turn the reins over to someone else. I am thinking about bringing in a kid I brought in before to help coach. He wants to do this full time, and this is a great opportunity for him to learn the ropes–especially coaching special teams and bringing that fine tuning eye to parts of the O and D. If I get stuck as HC (please no) I am going to reach out and pull in enough of a staff to lighten the heck out of the load.
So I come to the final day of classes and learning of the semester. What have I learned? I remain terrible at returning papers on time. As a result the learning for my students is hampered. I intend to improve in this regard. I want to be better at both the classroom environment and the base 1 on 1 interaction about and around essays. I believe the best way to do that is through the process. As Embiid says, ‘Trust the process’ and I shall moving forward.
I’ve yet to figure out what that looks like. Part of that discovery is really breaking down good writing in a way that makes sense to section. If I begin with the basic principles of rhetoric (Pathos, Logos, Ethos) that is a very high school approach. Moreover, the developmental education studies I’ve read show that it is highly ineffective to target specific aspects of writing in that way. Instead the holistic approach is best. In other words, I need to be pursuing the draft, draft, draft again method for writing.
I think I need 2626.com to expand.
I think I need that end result to be public and published so that the students feel their voices matter and are part of the conversation. As it stands the ‘zine doesn’t do that (or anything really). However, if it serves as the end result–If I say one or more of your essays will be worked and polished till publishable, this might be a look forward.
There is more potential to this conversation. This is not a ‘base your grade on a single essay’ conversation, but it is starting to feel like a base your grade on your best piece of writing conversation. Perhaps the conversation is becoming about finding a way to divide the grade between process and product in a way that puts more weight on process as teaching ought to, and separates the C’s from the A’s based entirely on product.
Some Thoughts:
I lost an idea last night. It popped up sometime after midnight. I still remember the script lettering of the title, though not the words. I remember the main character was a woman named Katherine and the first line put her in an interesting emotional peril. Yet all of this is gossamer. I remember it less than the zombie driven dream that followed.
I think I view the zombie apocalypse as a type of reset button and escape route. If all the rules are changed then we are no longer beholden to the same list of demands and expectations. We are no longer tied to debt as the primary driver of our life choices. Perhaps then zombies is less what I need than lotto. Yet zombies feel far more likely.
Yesterday I found myself staring at a wall sized add of a plus size model during my first trip to a mall in years. I took my partner and two of our kids–the oldest boy and the youngest (Not to be confused with my eldest–different kid). During this occasion I noticed that while quite attractive, the photo of this model prominently featured her back fat. Indeed I was caught staring and thinking, ‘Why focus on the least attractive (to me) portion of her?’ While there are a bevy of reasons why ‘they’ would have made this choice, I was caught staring. Caught by the youngest kid who noticed me and said, “That’s a little too thicc.” He is 9 going on 10. I did not correct him.
This was a fail. Call it a Father Fail. I have many.
Still, it got me thinking about the way we view beauty in our American society. While we are clearly in a transition towards a greater acceptance of full bodied and less than flawless women (see the aforementioned plus ad–a more clothed version of below) we are still measuring women by looks first.
But not men.
Men are measured by wealth and power. Our looks are secondary measurements, more germane to how we can be used for a good time than how relevant we are as actual partners. As I was preparing to write this blog I saw this link at the bottom of my CNN news page. This is why CNN sucks. This and more, but this specifically (under paid content) expresses all that is leading to my kid saying what he said.
Facts are facts, and the fact remains that we as a society are extremely poor at defining women based on the content of their character. Sure, a model should be measured by her looks, but even then there ought to be multiple measures and room allowed for what is beautiful. While I should not be considered outright wrong for not liking back fat (I hate it on myself and aim to rid myself of it, so what is so bad about not wanting it on my sexual partner?), I should also not be the guy pointing out that my beauty standard should be the one publicly observed. I mean to be better than that. Moreover, I mean to teach my kids better. It is fine that this woman was not what my kid is into (so much as he should be into any woman’s look at his age… seriously too soon IMHO) however, it is not for him to speak badly of her. Or me to speak it myself.
Sunday, 6:20. I’m sitting here thinking about the week that is about to unfold. This is the last week I will be teaching for the rest of the month (not including workshops for writers). I’m geeked to be done with the semester. Every end feels like a new beginning. I feel like I can shake off the failures and build on the successes. In truth I moreso learn from the failures than anything else. I know what I do well and for better or worse I just let that stuff ride and focus on where things went badly. Maybe I need to adjust that mindset moving forward.
It is all about moving forward with me right now–always forward. For example, I am learning to come to grips with the way modern media exists and the strange ecology of social media. I strongly believe that as a writer I need to get better about understanding and incorporating these things into what I do in order to promote myself. More importantly, I recognize I need to promote myself. Which means I need to have something to promote. This summer is largely about that last part: Having something to promote.
That is to say I will be working on a novel for an RPG, a short story that is going to be expanded into a novel (major market sci fi), and fine tooling the content of my classes so I can once again feel like I am gaining something from the experience of teaching.
I’m also trying to figure out what I feel/think about being a coach. It is all kinds of joy in the moment, but all kinds of time on the brain. This summer will help me move forward in recognizing my roll in that endeavor. One thing I learned: hard to coach your own kids. They don’t want to listen to what I have to offer when it is not 1 on 1.
As I struggle through another night of what I shall heretofore refer to as ‘Wordlock’ (basically gridlock or traffic congestion for words…nobody says gridlock anymore. Why?) I find myself thinking that there ought to be a system in place to get kids more interested in the outside world and simultaneously push us grown folk to pause and enjoy the world. I say this because I am experiencing yet another night of eyes blurred with fatigue and strain as I flip between laptop and video game, vacillating between work and play all in front of a screen. When we broke from our routines to be together as a family it was another screen. It seems my life is lived in front of screens. My eyes argue that it is far too much.
Perhaps the solution is to get back to books. Actual paper in hand and pages being flipped. Another suggestion is to cut back on the screen time for non work things. Don’t play video games. Don’t watch TV. An even smarter suggestion would be to do less of both without sacrificing them entirely. I believe a large part of the problem is that I only experience the games for half the week at most. A lot of the time where I am at the place of gaming is spent cleaning up and running around and writing and doing sports stuff, so when I do get a moment to play I binge like a kid. This too is unhealthy both for the heart and the eyes. I mean to seek balance in this as I do in all things.
The eye pain is a good reminder that it cannot be all about the screens. Occasionally there is a life outside of screen space. It is, every so often, a good idea to live it.
It is nearly 11pm as I start these words. I’m writing this from my office–one of the few places I really ever can slip into a zone and feel the words bleed out of me. I’ve been here a few times today, trying to get back into that daily mindset. This week represents quite the setback. I am officially resetting my 90 days. I’ll make day 1 tomorrow. Today was a crappy make up day where I felt like I was forcing it. New day, new 90. Beyond that I am smack dab in the middle of developing a plan to be successful and word smart for the entire summer.
The hard part of devising any plan of this sort is that I don’t entirely have a schedule that allows for X time to be when I write everyday. This is a good thing, because life doesn’t work that way. Writing, unfortunately, wants to work that way, so I’m learning to compromise by providing the words with a range of hours in which I can attempt to squeeze out 1K or more daily (I’m considering a push to 1500–more on that tomorrow once the decision is made).
I am also tasking myself to lose pounds. I presently way more than ever–227 lbs. Once that was JUST the name of a marginal but addictive TV show. It is no longer the place to be. It is the place to catch heart disease, so I gotta move back down into the 1’s. That plan is part diet, part meditation, part discipline, and a crap ton of exercise. This summer is about that too. In truth, these last 63 days are about building towards something special. Something different.
Something that is completely and perceptually a better me.
